The 21st century is a century of high technologies. It enters in the history of humanity as a century where trends of civilization dominate cultural trends. Besides, the modern civilized and developed society is a consumer society where there is a huge choice of consumer goods and services. That is why there is a constant need for certain information, on the one hand, for a consumer who needs to receive information about the product in order to acquire a higher quality product and, on the other hand, for a producer or for a seller who needs to sell this product in order to get profit. In a word, everyone needs information.
Modern advertisement is not just a trade engine, it is already a whole mechanism, the source of economic welfare and, most importantly, it is an effective instrument in managing behaviour of the buyers and the way of attracting their attention to the goods, the way of the creation of positive image of producing or trading organizations. Knowing the potential of advertisement can effectively affect consumer demand, the attitude of the buyer to the brand by encouraging them to purchase.
Numbers tell how all this is serious. The amount of advertising costs per 1 person in the USA exceeds 800 dollars, in Western Europe stands 170-350 dollars, in major Latin American and Eastern European countries — 40-70, in Russia — 22-24 dollars. Unfortunately, in Armenia any specific data on the real amount of advertising can not be provided as no one makes such calculations or just does not make it public.
But it is not just about the quantity and the amount of advertisement, it is also about the quality and the main thing is about the focus of its influence. Of course, it has changed. Nowadays sophisticated methods of influence on the minds of potential buyers are already being applied in the world. So, at the present time in the advertising industry an increasing attention is being paid to the newest technologies, first of all, to computer technologies. Modern technologies are widely applicable in different informational and advertising processes. Their importance is very great and day by day it is becoming more noticeable.
The world-wide advertisement — directions, types, trends
So, at present, the advertising method of Product Placement is very widespread in the world. It is when an advertisement is placed or, more precisely, is inserted in the film, picture, concert… Let us say, in the film actors drink beer having an important conversation, the brand of which is clearly visible on the screen or like a singer accidentally tells that he came to the concert in a certain brand-name car. This method started to be applied for the first time in the USA in the first half of the 20th century. The technique of Product Placement provides for three basic types of the placement of the product: visual, auditory and kinesthetic (i.e. immediate demonstration of the property of product or service). Today the technique of Product Placement is more effective. And there are still other methods of influence on the buyer, for example, “future shock” (as projection of likely future, shock from future, fear of future), NLP (neuro-linguistic programming which allows to have influence on the client at an unconscious level, taking into account the fact that the majority of decisions about the purchase of the product are being made by person by unconscious mechanisms of the psyche). The method “from mouth to mouth” is also very widespread and widely applied in the West. According to some sources, this method has proven to be one of the most effective, because a consumer would rather believe “the random” recommendation of his friend or even of a total stranger than the video or the bright billboard. So, for example, it is known that in 2002 the company SONY Ericsson Mobile hired 60 actors who were asking the passers by to take the pictures of them with a new telephone model with a built-in digital camera on the street of one of the European capitals. While actors, naturally, were hiding that they were the staff of this company. So many examples can be cited. It is also enough to recall the method applied by the winemaker Shustov for an advertisement of the first batches of Armenian brandy when the groups of students, hired by him, were visiting the best restaurants of the world and were only demanding Armenian brandy.
Advertisement in Armenia — pluses and minuses
In a word, the technique of advertisement is a serious science. I regret to note that only a few of us understand it. The vast majority is still based on grandfather methods. No, of course, advertising posters, painted on the canvas in doohan style “He came by himself!” or announcements like “Varoni eggs”,are becoming less used. Everything is created on computers, in modern offices with the newest technique. But the spirit, mood, taste…
Here is a question — when our designers create advertising posters, television or radio spots, are they or customers interested in the results of its influence on potential clients? Do not they have any doubt in the correctness of what they do? Don’t they think that their advertisement can have annoying influence on people? If one invents more or less successful publicity stunt, everyone starts to use it. Well, for example, the use of the look of Russian girl, who communicates with Armenian guys, already outplayed and rolled back on the advertisement of brandy, coffee, sunflower oil and a lot of things. Maybe their inventions should be patented as it has been done in the whole world for a long time in order not to receive numerous clones?
It is clear that the market of professional models is just forming and there is still much to be done on this issue. But if we do not have an appropriate level of professional models it does not mean that you can take anyone on the role of the main beauty for a beauty salon advertisement focusing on your own taste. In full agreement with the fact that there are no ugly women, nevertheless, I will not advise my wife or sister to go to that salon which beauties advertise, clearly chosen only on the related principle.
Numerous boys, who sell something on television, leave an impression of sugar heroes of fairy tales which before were hung from a tree and in which, respectively, you do not believe or, even worse, they are just uncomfortable to look at — they are so ridiculous and pathetic in their attempts to convince me in the necessity of a service or a product. And in most cases it is done in a dirty, cheap and primitive way. For some reason in local advertising agencies they think that the main thing in advertisement is correctly selected paint and high-end printing. There are plenty of artists and designers. But advertising professionals clearly lack by their influence on potential buyer, by human psychology, by the choice of target audience. Again and again a question is raised — does anyone (advertising agency or customer) carry out monitoring of the results of influence of advertisement on buyers? Or they hung a poster, set up an enormous billboard and is it considered to be done?
Recently we have had a very common method of advertisement which is called “a method of influence of archetype” in professional language, i.e., an advertisement built on ancient prototypes, on realities of the heroic past, on significant figures of well-known history, etc. Armenians have a very rich past, but then an advertisement has gone bad using the images of Noy, the king Tigran, the architectural monuments. Well, it is good if Noy has to cause associations with brandy or grape in us. And if the Temple of Garni is associated with a restaurant or, like a petrol station, you will agree that it is so much worse. Or an advertisement of the noble drink which bears the name of the great Mashtots with the use of nudity. Undoubtedly, the creators of such advertisement think that they found a very witty move. It is their business. A lot of people do not think so. Everything depends on the level of education and development. By the way, it is not necessary to be the worker of an advertising agency in order to understand and feel such nuances.
Sex and advertisement
Mostly I would like to focus on receiving the most popular effect of sublimation. There is a really big doubt that many local advertisers and specialists in an advertising industry know what they do with a particular pleasure and eagerness it is called so. In plain language it is called the use of erotic images for advertising purposes. For the first time this question was raised when an enormous poster of the great quality appeared at the car wash in the southern district of the city. Undoubtedly, the photo of the girl was taken from the Playboy journal or, at the very least, from the Russian “Like this!” The girl had such a look that it was quite obvious what she was doing on that object. Why did the owners hang this poster? What did they want to say, at what were they hinting? For a long time it is well-known that somewhere in the West (they say that already in Moscow) there is a car wash where the naked girls wash the cars. If the same happens at this car wash, let them write it straight as it is done in the same West! Or, for example, the nurses are depicted on the posters of popular pharmacy chains. In an once-seen erotic film it was told what kind of ugliness was happening in one of the private hospitals of America. So, looking at these posters it seems that these girls, the nurses from the posters of Yerevan pharmacies were starring in that film and still did not come out of the images. Their looks tell a visitor about anything, but never about the benefits of aspirin. And an advertisement of an ice-cream? In the shot the girl is making a feast of this harmless product in such a way that it is better not to describe anything than fearing to be blamed in the spread of ideas of untraditional forms of sex. And I should not say that if something is advertised by the female representative she has to be half-dressed and act ambiguously. It is clear that all these are the costs of the growth of civilized market relations, the process of development of normal society, etc. Today an advertisement of the peep-show and of an ice-cream — everything should be “sexy!” So totally according to Freud who, as it is known, thought that sexual attraction was the basic component of the human psyche. So, I would like to ask “advertising specialists” — do not put pressure on the psyche of clients!
Author: Armen Manukyan © All rights reserved.
Translator: Sona Melkonyan